Refugee Crisis in Europe

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People having discussion on the topic: Amber, Ben, Charles, Daisy, Eric and Fred

Category: Politics

Group Discussion Starts

Amber: The topic we have today is about European refugee crisis. This refers to the migration of people from Syria and other countries like Afghanistan and Iraq are travelling through the Mediterranean Sea to seek refugee/asylum in Europe

Ben: This has widely gained world media’s attention when five boats carrying almost 2000 migrants to Europe during April 2015 sank in the Mediterranean Sea and resulted in the death of about 1200 people

Charles: More than 10lakh migrants crossed the border into Europe in 2015,most of them entered through Sea but they also entered through road and train routes also for example from turkey about 40000 people entered into Europe by road

Image: pixabay

Daisy: It’s very sad that people have no place to live in their own country and have to search for shelter in some other country. It is similar to the uncivilized societies where people didn’t have fundamental rights and the most basic right i.e. right to life is denied. It’s very disturbing to see the condition of refugees in social media and in news. One particular picture of a Syrian boy, named Aylan Kurdi who’s dead on the beach of Europe shows how pathetic the situation is

Eric: you are right Dilep. That small boy’s death has moved the entire world and many leaders pledged to offer asylum and refugee to migrants. It became one of the main criteria in Canadian elections which were being conducted during that point of time because the boy’s family was planning to migrate to Canada

Fred: Initially all the countries were harsh against the illegal immigration. In fact many countries increased their patrolling to avoid migrant smuggling into their countries as it would lead to over population and insufficiency of resources. We cannot blame the countries also since many of these countries have robust refugee policies and they have received applications that have exceeded the capacity

Amber: Main causes of this migration crisis are events such as Arab Spring, which took place in March of 2011. These had led to political turmoil and upheaval and also instability in the homelands which disrupted the livelihoods of people leaving them an option no other than migrating in order to take refuge from chaos taking place in their homelands.

Daisy: Other cause is the non-intervention of US and European Union governments in the events where over 250,000 Syrian people had been killed by the Assad regime. Divisions between ethnic groups and Islamic fighters seem to make politics of conflict more complex.

Eric: A total of 220,000 people have been killed in a full-blown civil war, of which half considered to be civilians and also crowded cities have been destroyed. As per UN estimates, 660,000 people have been displaced internally.

Charles: Russia launched air attacks against ISIS in October 0f 2015 in Syria and also there was a fighting in Aleppo city in February of 2016. All these incidents instead of providing safety for the people, made them flee away. There were also situations like because of these bombings, injured civilians couldn’t get medical aid.

Ben: There are two major concerns regarding their journey during migration. One is migrants are moved by seeking the help of criminal networks which charge high fee offering less safety and the other is the Western government which show tolerance towards such dangers, may be to discourage refugees from taking such paths.

Amber: Coming to the places where they are taking shelter, since 2012 majority of them are living in Jordan and Lebanon where infrastructural facilities and availability of other are very limited and it’s reaching a breaking point. So people are shifting to Europe. Refugees who have moved into Iraq are trapped into that country’s own insurgent conflicts. Some have moved to Turkey as well.

Fawas: The reason for Western countries being unwelcoming to the refugees are fear of change to their nation’s identity and culture with immigration, change in civic identity and they feel scary about supposed threats from refugees and migrants because past incidents.

Eric: As per the U.N. estimates, more than half of the refugees are under the age of 18. They have been out of school, scared by the situations surrounding them, lacking safety and shelter. Most pathetic situation, older ones are forced to grow fast so that they can work and be of some help to their families.

Daisy: Most of the refugees are struggling to find odd jobs, accept minimum wages and feed their families and most of their basic needs aren’t even covered up. They find shelter wherever they can and must find ways to pay rent even for places which aren’t decent enough like abandoned chicken coops or sometimes it could be storage sheds. They lack sanitation facilities so that cholera and polio can easily spread.

Charles: Looking into the future, the European nations can have one of the two responses. One can be in a direction where European nations make a humane policy through which refugees can be granted the asylum they need, helping them in settling and trying to stabilize the situation and solving the root causes of the problem as well. In short, European nations acting effectively in the situation and trying to unfold the resolution.

Fred: The other direction could be a darker one which is completely shutting down the doors to the migrants. Refugees in these countries subjected to fearful and insecure environment which is least stabilization and setting up the refugees to poor treatment in the European nations. This would further lead to intolerance and would be against the humane policies governed by European nations.

Conclusion

The refugee crisis in Europe was one of the most highlighted incidents across the world. What started as a war in a country, spread to all of Europe, who allowed the refugees to enter Europe. Apart from the safety of these people, it will have a strong social, political and financial impact on Europe.

Facts about the topic

• Germany had the highest number of applications in 2015, with more than 476,000.

• Hungary had 177,130 applications by the end of December.

• Syria, Afghanistan, Kosovo are the top3 countries from which refugees are migrating

• The International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimates that more than 1 million migrants arrived by sea in 2015, and almost 34,900 by land.

• According to the IOM, more than 3,770 migrants are reported to have died trying to cross the Mediterranean in 2015. Most died on the crossing from north Africa to Italy, and more than 800 died in the Aegean crossing from Turkey to Greece.

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